Program puts officers back on streets

Wednesday

Oct 9, 2013 at 12:01 AM

STOCKTON - Police Chief Eric Jones believes his department broke new ground Tuesday when it launched an innovative new program funded by the Stockton Police Foundation, a nonprofit organization committed to aiding law enforcement through private donations.

Jason Anderson

STOCKTON - Police Chief Eric Jones believes his department broke new ground Tuesday when it launched an innovative new program funded by the Stockton Police Foundation, a nonprofit organization committed to aiding law enforcement through private donations.

The Transportation Officer Program enabled the Police Department to hire retired police officers who will work part time transporting criminals to jail, allowing full-time patrol officers to return to the streets sooner after making an arrest, Jones said.

"This is a one-of-a-kind program in the nation," Jones said. "It's never been done before."

Jones said his officers average more than 20 arrests each day. The process of transporting and booking each arrestee takes about an hour, Jones said. Employing part-time officers to transport criminals will free up full-time officers for more than 20 additional hours of patrol duties, Jones said.

"This gets officers back on the street very quickly," Jones said. "We're not getting more police officers on the streets, but we're getting more officer hours on the streets."

Jones said members of the community approached him in 2012 as the city careened toward a record homicide rate to express an interest in donating money to the Police Department in order to improve public safety. In response, the Stockton Police Foundation was formed in January, giving citizens a means of providing financial assistance to help an understaffed police department fight crime across the city.

"A nonprofit organization cannot fund full-time police officers, so we came up with a groundbreaking idea to hire part-timers," Jones said.

Retired Sgt. Rob MacDonald is one of two part-time officers who have been hired so far, said Officer Joe Silva, a spokesman for the Police Department. Others are being hired, Silva said.

MacDonald and retired Officer Scott Richardson drove an arrestee from the Police Department to the San Joaquin County Jail late Tuesday afternoon, the first to be transported under the program.

"It was hard to sit on the sidelines last year when we saw the (homicide) rate climb to the highest it's ever been in the history of the Police Department," said MacDonald, a 25-year veteran of the police force who retired two years ago. "It was hard to watch the crime rate rise and the reduction of officers in our department, so I'm happy to be back in the game."

Jones said the program will require about $150,000 per year to operate. None of that money will come from the bankrupt city's general fund, Jones said. Instead, it will be donated through the Stockton Police Foundation.

"This program will run as robust as the funding allows," Jones said. "To run it at an adequate level, we anticipate we will need $150,000 annually, so that will require regular fundraising. If we get less than that, we'll have to scale it back. If we get more than that, we can beef it up a little bit.

"This does not alleviate the point that we still need more officers. We do, but for the very limited resources that we have, it's things like this that will help make the community safer."